


they have been gone so long

by beyondthehorizon



Category: Flight Rising
Genre: -Ish, Gen, Metafiction, Originally Posted on Tumblr, a thing i wrote for their release, in honor of the banescales' first flameforger's
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:21:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26070328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beyondthehorizon/pseuds/beyondthehorizon
Summary: fate is not fair, but sometimes, sometimes, it is kind.
Kudos: 3





	they have been gone so long

so i was thinking about that song the young banescales heard when they hatched, but the breed’s encyclopedia entry is of no use. it appears onsite lore makes no reference to where in all of sornieth it came from. 

so here’s my proposition: it’s from their god. 

because the thing is- a very, very long time ago, the flamecaller lost her firstborn to war. 

they were her banescales, creations of her own claw, her own flesh and bone: glorious creatures of sky and of flame. and they were annihilated, so entirely and ruthlessly by the icewarden’s children. 

it is heartbreaking. for millennia, she grieves.

but time goes on. the banescales may be gone, but in time the flamecaller fashions a new race. they are dragons, but they are not in her image. never: the banescales were that, and nothing will ever replace them. 

her youngest children are different. they are soft and they are gentle; they are not the fury of the blaze but its warmth and welcome.

but still they sing. her children will always, always sing.

then the gaolers emerge from the ice. it is hard to look at them and not see monsters, but she must remind herself that these are not the dragons that killed her children. the bitterness clings, but she is quiet, and she does not chase them from her land.

she wonders why the icewarden got to keep his firstborn, and she did not. they may be gods, but they, too, are bound by chance and fate and chaos crying out. 

her people are at war once again. how history repeats itself.

and then magma rips through ancient ice beneath the blacksand annex- 

-and oh.

it is something monumental. as the first banescale hatchling in some eternity blinks against the sun, the flamecaller can feel all of sornieth pause for a moment. even, so far away, her brothers and sisters. 

they have been gone so long.

but they are hatchlings, alone in this world: they have no parents to teach them their ways nor their names. this is unacceptable.

and so, deep underneath the volcano, the flamecaller stirs. she is made of fire and strength; she is power given form, the inferno incarnate. she draws up her voice long fallen silent, and she sings.

it sweeps across the ashfall waste and beyond. her banescales have scattered: drifted on the wind to all corners of the world. but they are still the same, and it is instinct, their magic resonating with their mother’s song. they raise their own voices, so young and fragile, to chorus. 

her siblings brush against her presence. she can feel when the first banescale crosses the ocean; when the first talons of fire touch down on the frozen continent. a gaoler stands to greet him, and they call to one another. 

the icewarden is there, too. he looks to the flamecaller, long and quiet. she meets him easily, and does not falter. their history stretches out between them, terrible and bloodsoaked.

but she has allowed his children into her land, and he will do the same.

so there are banescales, again. they are without a culture and without a history, but the flamecaller wonders if that is for the best. they were defined by their war, those last decades: there was very little left of them that was not made of blood and fury. 

though the song dies out, its echo resonates. the world is changing, and the dead have come alive; there is something shifting beneath the earth and fate draws near. a turning point is coming.

but the flamecaller will face it with her firstborns and her youngest together. come what may, she will raise her head to the sky and sing to the primal heavens. here it is: the fire does not die.


End file.
